Advogato.org: Extreme Programming and Open Source Software

WEBINAR:On-Demand

"These are two of the hottest topics in software development
today. How do they fit together? This is an important question to
me, since at Suneido we are trying to embrace both. Here is my
look at each of the elements of Extreme Programming (XP) and how
they fit with Open Source Software (OSS). If you don't know about
XP there should be enough here to introduce you, and to perhaps
interest you in looking into it further...."

"XP assumes you have a customer (or a proxy) as part of the
project. OSS projects generally don't have a well defined
"customer". Nor is there a single voice for their users. Instead,
OSS projects tend to be guided by a combination of the vision of
their key developers, and the "votes" of their other developers and
users. And of course with OSS, if anyone wants something badly
enough they can always write it themselves!..."

"A broad interpretation of "open source" would say that by
definition the code is open to everyone. But in XP collective
ownership means anyone canchange any part of the project -
programmers are not restricted to a certain area of expertise. Most
large OSS projects have some restrictions on who is allowed to make
changes directly, and what process is required for others to submit
changes. This is necessary because of the large numbers
ofcontributors. XP is generally aimed at teams of 10 programmers or
less."